Friday, June 27, 2008

I'm faxing my IRS 1065 and Schedule K to the License & Tax Division just now, explaining how come I got 100% of the partnership's income in 2007: my partner, Dawn Wicca, for whom the business is named, died on March 17 of last year, of invasive breast cancer.

A partnership is like a goldmine or ranch, or in professional circles, sometimes doctors and lawyers create them, in order to pool business expenses while deriving some percentage, usually as a function of what a partner brings in. Dawn and I would each invoice our clients from DWA / 4D, pay business expenses, then take "owner draws" -- reported as income on an IRS 1040.

Some individuals join more than one partnership and so receive multiple Schedule Ks at the end of the year, plus one might jump on and off payrolls, netting W2s as employees of this or that temp agency, school or whatever. I've netted W2 income separate from the partnership most years. DWA itself has no employees, only owners.

Law firms often keep the name of a deceased senior partner, although Dawn Wicca & Associates isn't a law firm, is more an engineering and design firm, interpreting that broadly so as to include curriculum writing.